ourselves, would admit of a much longer discussion. The various animals
might, for instance, be compared with each other, and the beauty of the
most beautiful could be clearly shown to be owing to the greater
variety in the outline, or the greater variety of position, which they
included in equal unity of general effect. And should we step outside
the bounds which we have prescribed to ourselves, we should find that
in other things than questions of mere form the general canon holds
true, that laws produce beauty in proportion to their own simplicity
and to the variety of their effects. As a single example, take the most
beautiful of the fine arts, the art which is free from the laws of
space, and subject only to those of time, and in which, therefore, we
find a beauty removed as far as possible from that of curvilinear
outlines. How exceedingly simple are the fundamental laws of music, of
simple rhythm and simple harmony yet how infinitely varied, and how
inexpressibly touching are its effects! In studying music as a mere
matter of intellectual science, all is simple; it is only an easy
chapter in acoustics. But in studying it on the side of the emotions,
in studying the laws of counterpoint and of musical form, which are
governed by the effect upon the ear and the heart, we find intricacy
and difficulties, increased beyond our power of understanding.

So in the harmony of the spheres, in the varied beauty which clothes
the earth and pervades the heavens, in the beauty which addresses
itself to eye and ear, and in the beauty which addresses only the
inward sense,--the harmonious arrangements of the social world, and the
adjustment of domestic, civil, and political relations,--there is an
infinite diversity of result, infinitely varied in its effect upon the
observer. But could we behold the Kosmos as it is beheld by its
Creator, we should perchance find the whole encyclopedia of our science
resting upon a few great, but simple laws; we should see that the whole